http://www.practicalecommerce.com/authors/50/Greg-Laptevsky/ Greg Laptevsky is an SEM/SEO specialist with over five years of industry experience. Greg is a Certified Google Professional and a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador. For more information/consultation, please contact greg@clickinclusion.com. en-us Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:52:02 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/rss/ Practical Ecommerce v2.0.1 Ecommerce kmurdock@practicalecommerce.com bgetting@practicalecommerce.com 60 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/754/PPC-Report-Card-Learningbreakthroughcom/ Learning Breakthrough Program is a specialized exercise routine that improves cognitive functions for those diagnosed with developmental, behavioral and learning disabilities. This exercise program is offered via Learningbreakthrough.com, and staff of LBP (Learning Breakthrough Program) requested a review of its current pay-per-click advertising efforts on Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Account Structure LBP’s campaigns are logically structured in the accounts. Each campaign has a number of related Ad Groups (thematically close to each other) but I would strongly recommend splitting up Ad Groups into more campaigns. In fact, it’s always a good idea to split up thematically related Ad Groups and their keywords into separate campaigns. Here’s why: • You’ll be more flexible with budget allocation further down the road; • You’ll have a much better “bird’s eye” view of your campaigns; • Managing landing pages will be much easier; • Ad Groups expansion will... Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:52:02 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/754/PPC-Report-Card-Learningbreakthroughcom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/738/Pay-Per-Click-Tools-Improve-Productivity/ Daily pay-per-click management routine is not a lot of fun. Thankfully, there are a few tools out there that make the work much more efficient and allow search engine marketing professionals to look at the big picture. Below is a list of software tools that every pay-per-click account owner should consider. AdWords Editor Google.com/intl/en/adwordseditor/ AdWords Editor is Google's campaign management application. It's free, and it makes AdWords account updates a piece of cake. You are able to make adjustments to the account, except for a few recently-released AdWords features, through this desktop application and then post all changes to the live account. It is easy to move around keywords, ads, ad groups and even entire campaigns using AdWords Editor. Additionally, an Excel-friendly export feature is available for all of you spreadsheet lovers. PPC Keyword Generator Highdots.com/ppc-keyword-generator/ PPC Keyword Generator is also free. It is an easy to... Mon, 19 May 2008 15:48:47 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/738/Pay-Per-Click-Tools-Improve-Productivity/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/694/Pay-per-click-Report-Card-Vxbcom/ Vxb.com sells ball bearings of various types and sizes. The company is based in California and requested a review of its pay-per-click campaigns on Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Vxb.com's monthly ad spend is around $9,000 in Google, $2,000 in Yahoo! and $150 in MSN. Average conversion rate (the percentage of visitors who click on an ad and then purchase something within 30 days) ranges from 1.5 percent to 1.9 percent. Its average cost-per-click ranges from $0.42 to $0.57. Account Structure Its account is structured differently in all three engines. The Yahoo! account consists of 11 campaigns broken up by ball bearings types, such as rollerblades, bicycle, fishing and slotcar. Not all types listed on the website are present in the campaign. Additionally, there is one campaign for generic keywords (ball bearings, bearing distributor) that uses most of the budget. Drilling down further into the Yahoo! account, I noticed an overlap of keywords in different ad groups. If you're... Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:46:46 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/694/Pay-per-click-Report-Card-Vxbcom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/690/Pay-per-click-Ads-Impact-Google-Checkout-and-PayPal/ If you're running an ecommerce store, you've probably heard of PayPal and Google Checkout. The following is a quick rundown of things you might not have known about the two. Google Checkout You can process 10 times your ad spend in Google AdWords for free. For example, if you're spending about $3,000 per month in AdWords, you can process up to $30,000 in website sales with zero transaction fees. If you hook up your AdWords account to your Google Checkout account, you will be eligible to display a badge on your pay-per-click ad. It really will make your ad stand out. See for yourself: type "toys" in Google.com. See that Toys R Us ad with the Google Checckout logo? Google Checkout offers almost seamless integration with some popular carts out there. Check out Checkout.google.com/seller/integrate_cart.html for more information. You're also able to accept payments via Google Checkout on the mobile version of your site. If your customers have existing credit card... Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:07:39 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/690/Pay-per-click-Ads-Impact-Google-Checkout-and-PayPal/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/688/Pay-per-click-Spyware-and-Other-Scams/ If you thought click fraud was bad, consider this: your Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing ads and Microsoft adCenter accounts are new targets for spyware applications, hackers and scam artists. If thieves obtain access to your pay-per-click account, they are in complete control of your pay-per-click activity and could place ads on their behalf but charge your account for them. Unauthorized users are likely to do one of two things. First, the users could bury their own keywords and ads deep in your account without changing anything else, such as settings and budgets. The idea is to run ads quietly so the account owner doesn't know he's paying for somebody else's clicks. Second, the users could go through a one-night rendezvous by dumping all sorts of high-cost keywords into your account and adjusting budgets to hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. The idea is to get as many ridiculously expensive clicks (even $90 a click or more) as possible on your credit card.... Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:34:49 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/688/Pay-per-click-Spyware-and-Other-Scams/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/661/Advertising-On-The-Google-Content-Network/ The most common mistake Google AdWords advertisers make is assuming that Google’s search network and Google’s content network are the same. In reality, the two are very different. Below is a checklist of how one should go about settings up a content network campaign. Getting Started A content network campaign should be set up separately from a search network campaign for a number of reasons: You’ll be reaching your target audience at a different stage of the buying cycle. You’ll be targeting prospects using various types of ads types/formats. Quality of traffic generated through the content network is different. Your optimization strategy is rather limited and otherwise is very different from a search network campaign. You should have a separate budget for a content campaign. Content network ads are theme-based, versus search network ads, which are keyword-based. Step 1 To understand why the content network works differently from the search... Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:33:51 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/661/Advertising-On-The-Google-Content-Network/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/652/PPC-Report-Card-Homeexchangecom/ Homeexchange.com helps people exchange homes while on vacation. The site has two conversion events: A $99.95 registration for one year and a $50 house-listing fee. The site’s owner recently asked Practical eCommerce to review its pay-per-click campaigns in Google and Yahoo!. In its current campaign, Homeexchange.com spends around $2,000 per month in Google and $400 in Yahoo!. The site’s internal pay-per-click conversion tracking is in use, and the average cost per conversion is $45. Account Structure There is only one active Google and Yahoo! campaign with a single ad group in each. This structure is ineffective and does not conform to pay-per-click best practices — splitting the account into a number of separate campaigns. That single ad group has 50 keywords in Yahoo! and 61 keywords in Google. By grouping non-related keywords, Homeexchange.com adversely impacts its Quality Score, which ultimately affects cost per conversion. Remember, the higher a keyword’s... Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:05:18 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/652/PPC-Report-Card-Homeexchangecom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/648/Google-AdWords-More-Than-Text-Ads/ Google AdWords offers a number of different ad formats and options in addition to the standard text-based ads. I’ve summarized these formats and options below. Standard Text Ads These are the regular text ads that we most commonly associate with Google's pay per click ad program. The ads consist of a single title, two description lines and one display URL. They have proven to be a very effective medium of driving advertising message to the end user. More information is available at Adwords.google.com/select/afc/ads.html. Image/Flash Ads Image ads are another format support by Google AdWords. These are your regular banner ads in a variety of shapes and sizes. To ensure maximum exposure on Google’s content network use all allowed sizes. More information about specific ad sizes is available at Adwords.google.com/select/imagesamples.html. Mobile Text Ads Millions of people are using their cell phones with Internet connectivity to find products and services on the web.... Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:28:30 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/648/Google-AdWords-More-Than-Text-Ads/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/647/Negative-Keywords-For-Your-PPC-Campaign/ Keywords are an integral part of any online advertising campaign. However, what is sometimes overlooked is the equal importance of negative keywords, which are word filters that disqualify ads from being triggered by users’ search queries. For example, if the term “iPhone” is one of your keywords, each time somebody runs a search for that keyword your ad will be displayed. Similarly, if someone were to run a search for the term “iPhone problems,” your ad will also be displayed since the main keyword “iPhone” is present in the search query. To avoid bloating total impressions with irrelevant searches it is important to add the word “problems” as a negative keyword so that the “iPhone problems” query would not trigger your ads. Negative keywords will not only improve your click-through rate, but will also improve the traffic quality that your pay-per-click advertising generates since the negative keywords should be filtering out many undesirable clicks. Here... Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:37:43 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/647/Negative-Keywords-For-Your-PPC-Campaign/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/642/Pay-Per-Click-Account-Tools/ A daily pay-per-click management routine can sometimes be a source of frustration. Thankfully, there are a few tools out there to streamline the process. What follows is a list of software that every pay-per-click account owner should consider. AdWords Editor AdWords Editor is Google’s campaign management application. It’s free and makes AdWords account updates much easier. In Editor, you are able to make all adjustments to the account, except for a few recently released AdWords features (such as pay-per-action and ad scheduling), through this desktop application and then post all changes to the live account. It is also easy move around keywords, ads, Ad Groups and even entire campaigns using the AdWords Editor. Additionally, an Excel-friendly export feature is available. Find AdWords Editor at Google.com/intl/en/adwordseditor. PPC Keyword Generator PPC Keyword Generator is also free, and is an easy to use application that helps generate long-tail keywords without... Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:45:57 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/642/Pay-Per-Click-Account-Tools/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/630/Pay-Per-Click-Advertising-Alternative-PPC-Venues/ In the world of pay-per-click advertising, there are three well-known players: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. However, there are several other interesting pay-per-click sites you may not be familiar with, which you might find useful. Clickriver Clickriver.com is owned and operated by Amazon.com. All ads are circulated on Amazon, and advertisers running ads through Clickriver are therefore able to reach an audience that is looking to shop online. The pay-per-click interface is very intuitive and should seem familiar to anybody using Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Additionally, you have complete budget flexibility and easy-to-understand reporting, but no internal conversion tracking is provided (you’ll need to use a third-party solution to track results, such as Google Analytics). Clickriver could be an interesting test for your ecommerce website. No set up fee is required to sign up. Business.com Don’t let the name throw you off. It seems as... Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:49:07 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/630/Pay-Per-Click-Advertising-Alternative-PPC-Venues/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/615/PPC-Report-Card-Cheapbowlingballscom/ CheapBowlingBalls.com is a three-year-old ecommerce business that sells bowling balls and accessories. The site has Google and Yahoo! pay-per-click campaigns running with ad spend of $2,000 and $1,000 per month, respectively. CheapBowlingBalls.com has approached Practical eCommerce for help with its pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Currently, the site averages $23 cost-per-conversion with 0.95 percent conversion rate. As a note, cost-per-conversion needs to be low enough to justify the cost of the pay-per-click program. And, as it relates to conversion rate, I usually believe an average ecommerce business, with the proper PPC program in place, and conversion friendly landing pages, should be converting at 1.2 percent to 1.5 percent. Account Structure The Google account is nicely broken down into 117 different brands and ball name Ad Groups. It also includes a separate campaign for competitors (this includes competitor keywords — competitor brand names, websites and products) and a... Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:46:29 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/615/PPC-Report-Card-Cheapbowlingballscom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/609/Google-Expands-Ad-Reach/ In another advertising venture offline, Google recently announced an extension of its Print Ads initiative. The program, which Google originally began testing in 2006, now includes more than 225 newspapers, with a circulation of roughly 30 million. It’s what is being promoted as newspaper advertising made easy, and is yet one more new extension of AdWords. If you’re an ecommerce merchant who has considered advertising in other media, here’s a quick checklist of the specifics: • The program provides an advertiser with a unique opportunity to contact multiple newspapers and negotiate advertising from a simple web interface. • A merchant can either build a campaign based on publication types or handpick the papers the advertisements will run in. • Merchants can select specific paper sections in the newspapers. However, demographic information is not available through Google’s interface beyond “publication type.” • Advertisers can request a free Google... Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:34:40 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/609/Google-Expands-Ad-Reach/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/607/Google-Audio-Ads-Look-To-Make-Some-Noise/ Have you ever considered a radio campaign as a method to increase awareness of your organization’s online presence? Recently, Google announced that its Audio Ads are available through the AdWords account interface. Not only could this present a viable marketing opportunity to reach consumers both online and offline, but radio advertising can also be a cost effective way to generate a direct action response. Potentially, a radio campaign also offers a unique alternative to build brand awareness beyond just search engine marketing. Here are a few things merchants should know about Google’s Audio Ads: • This is not Internet radio advertising — it’s regular AM and FM radio. • A merchant can get started for as low as $500/week, plus cost of developing a radio ad (I would highly recommend allocating at least $1,000/week for at least four weeks in order to obtain meaningful results). • If a company is shooting for a lower budget ($1,000 - $2,000 for the entire... Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:48:40 -0700 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/607/Google-Audio-Ads-Look-To-Make-Some-Noise/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/594/Personalized-Search-Coming-For-Search-Engines/ Personalized search could be the next big thing in search engine marketing. In fact, we are beginning to see the shift from homogeneous search results to personalized results already, and all major search engines have tools in place that are collecting such data. A good example is Google’s Web History. If you run a search with it turned on vs. turned off, potentially you’ll see a slight difference in search results for the same keywords. So what has led to the trend towards personalized search? The whole idea of a good search engine is based on the concept of “relevancy.” If you can quickly find what you’re looking for, then the “algorithm” is doing what it’s supposed to. Personalized search is really taking “relevancy” one-step further. Not only will Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask deliver results based on their proprietary ranking architecture, but they will also look at your Internet browsing patterns, and your search history, and then deliver the most relevant... Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:41:39 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/594/Personalized-Search-Coming-For-Search-Engines/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/583/PPC-Report-Card-POSSupplycom/ POS Supply Solutions sells office and paper products at its website, Possupply.com. It spends $1,000 per month on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising with, exclusively, Google. POS says its PPC goal is to generate product sales, and POS Supply asked us to review its overall pay-per-click ad program, which we are pleased to do. Keywords POS has around 400 active keywords in its Google account. Those are nicely broken down into 38 different Ad Groups (where multiple keywords refer to a single ad) with both broad and long-tail (more narrow and specific) keywords in the account. For POS Supply "credit card ribbons" is a broad keyword, and "840 ink roller" is more narrow and specific, for example. The account could use more product/brand name keywords: product keywords usually don't generate a lot of traffic, however they will be extremely targeted (such as "2001 flatbed imprinter"). Brand name keywords, on the other hand, have a lot of traffic potential (such as "fraud-u-lite... Wed, 10 Oct 2007 08:57:20 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/583/PPC-Report-Card-POSSupplycom/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/573/Keyword-Research-Tools/ Every diligent search marketing specialist should be constantly researching new keywords for his customers. Over the years, I've come up with a list of “must-see” sources for new keywords. Some are traditional keyword research tools/methods, whereas others tend to be more unorthodox. Traditional Keyword Research Tools Traditional keyword research tools are an absolute must for any successful search- engine-marketing campaign. There are quite a few out there including KeywordDiscovery, WordTracker, Google’s Keyword Tool and Yahoo’s Keyword Selector Tool. Those are great for getting your feet wet and getting started. At some point, however, you might find yourself struggling to come up with new keyword ideas using those tools. When it doubt, start thinking synonyms. Synonyms Just because you think the right terminology for your product/service is XYZ, that doesn’t stop prospects trying to find you typing ABC into the search engines. I’ve often seen business owners... Mon, 24 Sep 2007 12:39:49 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/573/Keyword-Research-Tools/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/550/Actively-Promote-The-Nuances-Of-Your-Website/ Many Internet-generated prospects need to be told why they should take action on your website, and often times online businesses don’t spend enough time on this issue — essentially generating fewer sales for the same cost of traffic. Below are some tips on how to get more bang for your buck. Initial exposure This process really begins with your marketing message. Do not try to deceive your prospects. If you’re offering free shipping over $100, make sure the restriction is clear. Since you would add that into your banner, pay-per-click or other campaigns, you are likely to see a drop in traffic, however, the resulted traffic should be much more qualified. Reinforce your offer Make sure you spell out your promotions on all pages. I have seen companies bury their best value statements “below the fold” or simply blend them in with the rest of the site. Think of your value-statements as top reason why you are better than others – spell it out. Don’t leave any room for... Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:26:55 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/550/Actively-Promote-The-Nuances-Of-Your-Website/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/547/Googles-Personalized-Search/ With the launch of Google’s personalized search every user will now get search results tailored to his/her specific interests. More specifically, the algorithm will actually be taking into account what you've previously searched for on Google, as well as the sites you have visited in order to deliver “personalized search results.” Yes, that means your clients will be looking at a different search engine results pages than you do, and so will millions of other people. Most importantly, general user search patterns will now be used to calculate your website’s placement on the search engine results pages. As if it wasn’t hard enough optimizing for homogeneous search results, a new question to be addressed is how do you make sure your company is in the spotlight of personalized search results? Here are some quick tips: Build community. As of October 2006, according to Socialtext.net, 40 of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging about their products/services. If Cisco does... Sat, 18 Aug 2007 10:42:53 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/547/Googles-Personalized-Search/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/539/Advertising-Online-A-Variety-Of-Opportunities/ You may find this hard to believe, but Internet marketing does not revolve solely around Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Whether you’re looking for fresh traffic, new business or just want to kick your marketing up a notch, there are other quality ad networks out there worth considering. Contextual AdNetworks AdBrite AdBrite is offering a whole array of advertising options, besides regular “keyword targeting.” Advertisers are able to choose “banner ads” and “interstitial ads.” “Interstitial ads,” which, generally, is an ad that loads in between pages while the user browses the website, present an interesting opportunity since the ad is shown in-between websites’ pages. This is also an innovative approach to deal with idea of banner blindness — the concept that most Internet users, over time, develop “banner ad immunity.” Additionally, demographic targeting by income and ethnicity are also available. AdBrite’s notable partners include Linkedin, Friendster,... Mon, 13 Aug 2007 11:01:46 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/539/Advertising-Online-A-Variety-Of-Opportunities/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/529/Sluggish-Sales-Consider-Adding-Additional-800-Numbers/ As much people love the web, there are always those who prefer to use the phone number on the site to inquire about company’s products and services. An important question to consider is how accurately are you accounting for phone sales when planning your ad budget? What follows are several simple ways for small business owners to figure out which traffic source generates the most phone calls. Adding A Second 800 number If you’re just testing a new traffic source and want to accurately track the results, simply get another 800 number from your current phone provider to be placed on a page designed for a specific ad campaign. Everything else should remain unchanged — just change the phone number. Subsequently, when you’ll get your monthly bill, you’ll know exactly the number of phone calls generated. This is a great method to test “natural” vs. pay-per-click traffic. Multiple 800 numbers Two or more 800 numbers are an excellent way if you’re running multiple... Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:38:21 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/529/Sluggish-Sales-Consider-Adding-Additional-800-Numbers/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/518/Lowering-Shopping-Cart-Abandonment/ As an ecommerce owner, you always want to make the checkout process as quick and smooth as possible for your own ecommerce customers. Here’s a quick checklist of simple website changes that could help you lower shopping cart abandonment. Prominent “Add to Cart” button Make sure that a “add to cart” button is prominent on the product page. If you must have other action buttons, make them secondary (make them smaller, a different color, etc.). If “add to cart” is intended as a primary action on your product pages, you have to visually communicate that to the user. Reliability Elements Since users can’t really walk up to your store to see who you really are, you’ll have to prove you’re trustworthy through others means. Third-party endorsements from such organizations as the Better Business Bureau or any other industry organizations are great. The idea is to relieve any tension associated with not knowing who they’ll be buying from. Short Checkout... Wed, 11 Jul 2007 11:06:29 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/518/Lowering-Shopping-Cart-Abandonment/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/502/Mobiwebolized-Search-Marketing/ If you're one of the big guys at the top of the search engine organic results, your business is probably doing pretty well. For the rest of us, there’s an “early bird” special. It’s called mobile search, and it just might be the search marketing redemption you were looking for. Why? Even though the industry is just really in its infancy, many professionals are saying it is the inevitable future of search engine marketing (SEM). Consider this: According to a June 2006 Telephia Mobile Internet report, there were 34.6 million U.S. mobile users. And as new gadgets such as iPhone roll out, there will undoubtedly be many more. What does that mean in terms of search engine marketing? The answer is simple: Time to get your websites “mobiwebolized.” In most cases regular SEM logic applies, however there are couple of important exceptions: Different bots will be crawling your site, so make sure they can see the content you have. Avoid all unnecessary code, and keep things... Wed, 13 Jun 2007 11:19:36 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/502/Mobiwebolized-Search-Marketing/ http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/500/Click-Fraud--What-To-Do-When-Youve-Been-Cheated/ So you think you’re a victim of click fraud, and the question is now what? Well, it’s time to play “cyber detective” and get refunds from pay-per-click (PPC) engines for the wasted dollars. But keep in mind, because click fraud eats away search engine revenue in the form of reimbursed clicks, the burden of proof lies entirely on you. In order to rectify the situation, the first step is to gather all the information about fraud occurrences you feel may have occurred. You will need campaign and adgroup names, IP addresses, referring pages, geographic origin of the clicks in question, keywords that were searched for, the number and time range of the clicks and any other relevant data required by your search engine to process a claim. All of that information can easily be obtained from most third-party web analytics tools or from your server logs. The second step is to write a paragraph or two describing the abnormality in your PPC account, any click trends you may have... Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:02:45 -0600 http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/500/Click-Fraud--What-To-Do-When-Youve-Been-Cheated/